Logo após a texto eu adicionei os links para o download do arquivo PDF e do áudio MP3 gravado pelo professor Erik. …………If you like the article, please consider using his extension Inglês Flash to make some articles of your own to share with him, and we may even publish them here on the blog!

Ministory Quiz

As an additional exercise, after learning the vocabulary from the article, listen to the audio below to see if you can understand it. It’s a short story that uses the vocabulary, followed by some easy questions to verify your understanding, and finally, a point-of-view exercise that tells the same story from a different perspective. Only if necessary, click “Transcript” to view the text.

Losing a game…
(1) I want you to think back to the last time you found yourself in this situation. (2) Getting through this is going to require that you narrow your focus onto things you can do to improve. (3) Doing the same old thing isn’t going to cut it, you have to strive for something more. (4) I think what’s missing isn’t a lack of courage, or talent, or bravery. I think what we lack is a bond with our past. (5) I think we should seek to foster our connection with what got us here. (6) Remembering what it’s like to grow up. Some of you grew up on the streets, others ran away from home, still others of you remember wondering where your next meal would come from. (7) So stand up and take this loss like a man …the men you have all become. Learn something from it, and be better for it.

QUESTIONS
1 What is he asking them to do? (think back –> remember encountering a similar situation)
2 What do they need to do in order to get past their problems? (narrow focus –> concentrate more on specific things they can improve on now)
3 Should they try to do more?
4 Do the players need to forget about their past? (bond –> connection)
5 What does “foster” mean here? (to help grow, improve connection with what “got us here” –> led to our success)
6 Do most of the players come from good families? (broken families, little food, not much money)
7 What does “stand up and take it” mean? (accept responsibility and its consequences)

POV – A player talking about what the coach said earlier that same day…
Coach said he wanted us to think back to the last time we found ourselves in this situation. He said getting through this was going to require that we narrow our focus onto things we can do to improve. He said doing the same old thing wasn’t going to cut it, he said one has to strive for something more. He thought what was missing wasn’t a lack of courage, or talent, or bravery. He thought what we lacked was a bond with our past. He thought we should seek to foster our connection with what got us here and remember what it was like to grow up. He said some of us had grown up on the streets, others had run away from home, still others of us remember wondering where our next meal would come from. He ordered us to stand up and take the loss like a man, like the men we had all become. He encouraged us to learn something from it, and be better for it.